Johnnyaardvark Posted October 28, 2014 Share Posted October 28, 2014 (edited) M42 - composite for HDR.8x 3minutes outer ISO800.23x 20seconds and 29x 8 second exposures for the core at ISO800. Trapezium 29x 8 second at ISO800 All with a stack load of darks and about 18 flats. ED80, HEQ5 Pro and Nikon D5000 unguided. Stacked in DSS and processed in CS2. Feedback and comments welcome Thanks Steve M42 EMS3 by sja88, on Flickr Edited October 28, 2014 by Johnnyaardvark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+RonC Posted October 28, 2014 Share Posted October 28, 2014 I like that, lots of detail and a 'non blown' core. Did you use layers in PS or just stacked in DSS? Cheers Ron Johnnyaardvark 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnnyaardvark Posted October 28, 2014 Author Share Posted October 28, 2014 Thanks Ron. Different exposures layered as groups in dss then final manual layering in PS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+RonC Posted October 28, 2014 Share Posted October 28, 2014 I haven't got round to learning that yet!! Well done that man! Johnnyaardvark 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnnyaardvark Posted October 29, 2014 Author Share Posted October 29, 2014 A new and maybe final edit? With a little increased saturation (as suggested by Mike) and minor adjustment to colour. Don't think I have over cooked it too much ? Any further comments and advice welcome Steve M42 Orion Nebula and M43 Running Man @ EMS3 by sja88, on Flickr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perkil8r Posted October 29, 2014 Share Posted October 29, 2014 that looks a touch better IMO, good start Johnnyaardvark 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tweedledum Posted October 29, 2014 Share Posted October 29, 2014 Hi Steve, That is awesome. Congrats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest StevenWhatley Posted October 29, 2014 Share Posted October 29, 2014 Looks good mate lovely detail!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 Nice image I like the colour Stephen Johnnyaardvark 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnnyaardvark Posted November 2, 2014 Author Share Posted November 2, 2014 Thanks all for the encouragement. :-) Stephen. Bet the image looks a little different to the raw test images you saw on the Friday night although amazingly the colour was there. Quite bizarre how it loses that after stacking and it then needs pulling out again in the processing. Still really happy with how it turned out. S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Phillyo Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 Very nice M42 here, perhaps the blacks are a little clipped? You might be able to tease out a little more nebulosity if you take the black back up a little bit? Great effort. Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnnyaardvark Posted November 2, 2014 Author Share Posted November 2, 2014 Thanks Phil and for the advice/comments. What settings need adjusting to do that? Thanks. Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Phillyo Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 I'm guessing you used photoshop or a similar program? If so then it's your levels. If you've already saved it then you may need to go back to the autosaved tiff file from DSS and start again. Adjust the curves first (Ctrl+M) to bring the detail of the nebula out then adjust the levels (Ctrl+L) to bring the black point up. Don't take the black point past the start of the histogram curve as that's when you'll start clipping the black data. Hope that makes sense, if not let me know Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+RonC Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 Curves first then levels? Interesting, like most folk I do it the other way round! But ]next image I work on I'll try curves first! Cheers Ron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Phillyo Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 (edited) I use Pixinsight now so forget which way to do it, but I thought it was curves then levels first. Don't suppose it matters as long as you don't clip the black point. Leave the background at around 50-60 until your final edit then drop it to about 30. Shouldn't be much darker than that I think? (been a while). Phil Edit: Yours are around 10ish which is too low Edited November 2, 2014 by Phillyo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnnyaardvark Posted November 2, 2014 Author Share Posted November 2, 2014 (edited) Actually have not changed the levels themselves much as I thought that changing the curves alone was a different way of editing the same thing? I don't fully know as I mostly only "play" with this software so am far from an expert... more a "tweak and see user" and play it by ear [read eye!] Where would I find reference to these numbers/levels "background at 50-60" and my current values of about 10? Had a little play... is it the middle of the highest peak on the histogram? And if so what determines if I am looking at the levels of the "background?" Thanks for the input as it's all useful and much appreciated. Regards Steve Edited November 2, 2014 by Johnnyaardvark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Phillyo Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 Hi Steve. Levels and curves do two different things so really you 'should' adjust the curves quite harsh on the first stretch followed by moving the black point up towards the left edge. Then repeat with a slightly less harsh iteration of curves, then move levels again etc. Don't go too far though. You'll know when it's about far enough by either practise, looking at the image or more accurately looking at the histogram. When the histogram no longer has one nice high peak and is more stretched out then you've gone as far as you can go really. Then you can remove gradients, noise, star shrink, add some contrast and sharpen the image a small amount...all to taste :-) If you want to see what level your background is at then if you right click on the dropper tool on the left hand side of photoshop you'll get another option (can't think of its name right now as I'm using my tablet to type this from my bed!) Place 4 of them around your image and on the right hand side above layers pane and above the history/actions panes you'll see the numbers in rgb value, that denotes the red, green and blue values for your image. Ideally they want to be about the same for the background (try to avoid clicking on any nebulosity) and should be approx 30. You can drop it a little lower if you like, again to taste, but 20 should be the absolute lowest value. Hope that makes sense, if not let me know and I'll try to add some screen shots to explain better the next time I'm on the PC. Cheers, Phil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philjay Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 Plenty of detail in there Steve, nice image. I gave up on DSS after fighting to get the colour back with my modded 1000d images. It just seemed to desaturate the images beyond rescue In photoshop, levels, curves nor saturation couldnt pull the colour out. I went through loads of options and couldnt get it right. I then invested in Images + and the very first process using the align, stack routine brought all the colour out. Not used Dss since Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 Hi Stephen yes a lot different to Friday night lot more detail Stephen Johnnyaardvark 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnnyaardvark Posted November 3, 2014 Author Share Posted November 3, 2014 (edited) Thanks Stephen, Phil and Rob... I like the free route but will have a look at that software you suggested Rob. Thanks for the info Phil. Think I have found all the bits last night... good info. Some of which I do already. Saturation increase required for colour (as per Robs comment/problems with DSS). At what point would you increase saturation? Gradient removal... hoped to avoid that by adding flats. These are the first where I have attempted that but some of my flats were not perfect but has produced some of my best/flattest images to date so was quite happy with that. Had a play with some suggested techniques for reducing star bloat. Interesting but not quite as good as I would like I guess. Struggled a little keeping the background higher than 10 after adjusting curves/levels partly as a starting point the background mostly shows about 30 (or so) max only for the RGB values of the stacked raw output from DSS. Anyhow... had a play and made sense of your advice. Nothing to show for it yet though as needs a little more subtlety in the adjustments than I gave it last night! More time required and I am back at work so will have more of a go when I can make time Thanks again for the comments/advice and suggestions. Really appreciated! Steve Edited November 3, 2014 by Johnnyaardvark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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